Posts pertinent to the entrepreneurial economy. From 2016 onward, focused more on private securities offering exemptions and topics related to startup and emerging company financing.

Tactical Public Capitulation

By http://profile.typepad.com/1237764140s22740 //
February 21, 2011
in Rhetoric

Two good examples recently of what I'll call tactical public capitulation.

Here's the first:

If you didn't play the video, here's the gist: Representative Anthony Weiner speaking on the floor of the US House of Representatives makes remarks that are deemed objectionable; he is ordered to stop speaking and to take his seat; in order to regain the floor, he is required to formally withdraw his remarks. Rep. Weiner does indeed "withdraw" his remarks, formally; but once he regains the floor, he repeats them!

The objectionable remark? "Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."

The second example is the Quora answer within the screenshot below. The "surrender" is so pointed, it's aggressive.

It takes a confident and intellectually agile person to work someone else's system in such effectively subversive ways!